By Autumn Smith | FAFO Justice ⚖️
For months, the political insiders, government loyalists, and establishment gatekeepers have desperately tried selling the public the same tired line: “There’s no conflict.” “It’s just conspiracy theories.” “Nothing improper happened.”
Well, EGLE’s own FOIA response just detonated that narrative like a stick of dynamite tossed into a room full of gasoline fumes. Because when FAFO Justice filed a targeted FOIA request seeking records related to actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest involving the politically connected law firm Bauckham, Thall, Seeber, Kaufman & Koches P.C., the State of Michigan didn’t respond with “no records.” They didn’t respond with: “We found a few emails.”They responded with a jaw-dropping invoice demanding more than $7,000 to process the records.
Read that again.
Seven.Thousand.Dollars.
According to EGLE’s own invoice, the agency identified approximately:- 1,644 responsive files,- 1,141 items requiring exemption review,- 137 labor hours reviewing records,- and another 57 hours specifically dedicated to separating exempt material from nonexempt material.That’s nearly 200 hours of review tied specifically to records involving:- conflicts of interest,- recusals,- ethics concerns,- conflict checks,- screening memoranda,- internal communications,- advisory opinions,- and outside counsel relationships involving the firm.
That isn’t normal.That isn’t routine. And that sure as hell isn’t “nothing to see here.”
Here’s the problem for the people trying to downplay this: government agencies do not spend nearly 200 labor hours reviewing records that supposedly don’t matter. They do not assign teams of employees to sift through over 1,600 files unless there is a mountain of responsive material sitting there waiting to be examined.And they definitely do not spend 57 hours separating exempt from nonexempt material unless the records contain sensitive internal discussions, legal analysis, attorney-client communications, ethics evaluations, deliberations, conflict concerns, or politically radioactive conversations somebody clearly doesn’t want casually dumped into the public domain.
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That’s not speculation.That’s EGLE’s own invoice talking.
What makes this even more devastating is the fact that the FOIA request itself was narrowly crafted. FAFO Justice did not ask for every email involving the law firm. This was not some reckless fishing expedition cast into the ocean hoping to snag something interesting. The request targeted one thing: conflicts and ethics-related communications. Meaning the universe of records EGLE identified are, by definition, conflict-related materials. That point cannot be spun away. The establishment now has a serious credibility problem. Because the same people insisting the public’s concerns are fabricated are now faced with a documented state agency response showing an enormous volume of responsive records requiring extensive review, redaction, and legal scrutiny.
So the obvious question becomes:
What exactly is inside these records that requires nearly 200 hours of labor before the public can see them? Who was communicating with whom? How many internal concerns were raised? Were recusals discussed? Were ethics warnings ignored? Were special relationships disclosed? Were conflict waivers issued?Did state officials privately acknowledge concerns while publicly pretending everything was perfectly fine? The public deserves answers.
And let’s talk about the elephant in the room nobody wants to say out loud: a $7,000 FOIA price tag looks an awful lot like a financial wall placed between the public and information somebody hopes never sees daylight. Whether intentional or not, these kinds of massive fee estimates create a two-tier transparency system where wealthy institutions can investigate government conduct while ordinary citizens and independent journalists get priced out of accountability.That should terrify every taxpayer in Michigan. Because transparency that only exists for people who can afford it is not transparency at all.
At this point, the issue is no longer whether conflict-related communications exist.
EGLE already answered that question.
They do. In large numbers.
The only remaining question is how explosive the contents must be if the State of Michigan believes it takes nearly 200 hours and over $7,000 to control what portions the public is allowed to read.And that’s where this story stops being a rumor and starts becoming a serious public trust issue.